timeSite

Inspiration

EST, PST, CST, GMT - and 20 other time zones, have become a communication and scheduling nightmare. How can we keep track of all these time-zones as more and more people are switching to remote work opportunities? There are so many mental health issues that arise from remote work that are a direct result from having to communicate across time zones.

This is an issue that isn't currently being addressed by any of the apps in the market.

timeSite, is a mobile and web application hub, for scheduling and communication. With our main focus being to encourage having healthy boundaries and mindfulness in remote communication.

What it does

A mobile, desktop, and smartwatch calendar/alarm system that allows you to feed in the date and time in the time zone they are happening in ---- and the app takes care of the rest so that you STAY ON ONE time zone! Not only that -- but businesses with remote workers and teams spread across the world could have a system that allows you to be mindful of the timezones your teammates are working in, so you don't accidentally spam them with messages when THEY'RE TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP!

We solve this problem in 3 ways

We automatically convert time zones; whether you are adding something to your calendar or receive a message from a teammate. The time zone you see will always be the one based on your current location, however you will still be able to access the original message.
If you are about to send a message to someone who's workday has ended or it's very early or very late, then we send a mindful message, so you can remind yourself to be patient if you don't get a quick reply. We also allow users to write custom messages, if they choose.

3.When a person's workday is finished, their profiles will be moved to the bottom of the chat, so you won't be inclined to message them when it is an inconvenient time.

How we built it

The UI/UX design was done using Figma which is a collaborative interface tool. The android app front-end was built using Flutter, Visual Studio Code, and Android Studio. Google's Firebase is being used for hosting the app, authentication, and storage.

Challenges we ran into

Making the video was very challenging. We were using adobe spark and weren't able to figure out why some of the footage lost color. In addition, we are all new to mobile app development, and trying to decide which tools to use took some time. Eventually, we chose Flutter and Firebase, however, this required hours of watching videos to learn Flutter, Firebase Authentication, and Cloud Firestore.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We finished most of the UI/UX design in just one day. Once we had a full team, we were able to brainstorm ideas very quickly and get started.

What we learned

The best strategy is to plan out the ideas in as much detail as possible, so everyone can work on it faster. It is also important to know which task should be delegated and which ones require a collaborative effort. Flutter is a great tool for front-end app development and FlutterFire allows us to use Firebase for the backend.

What's next for timeSite

timeSite will be working towards introducing the automatic timezone converter as a plugin that can work across all platforms. This will allow users to use it with the apps they are already familiar with instead of installing a new app.